


The 'Potentially Bad' Protocol

by spideywriting (catch_you_later)



Series: whumptober 2019 [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Gen, Human shield, Hurt Peter Parker, Identity Reveal, POV Outsider, Phone Calls & Telephones, do not copy to another site, no.4, whumptober2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-11-23 11:13:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20891171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catch_you_later/pseuds/spideywriting
Summary: Working at Stark Industries' call center can sometimes be very difficult.Especially when there are codewords that aren't even listed on the official code manual.Or, who the hell is Peter Parker?





	The 'Potentially Bad' Protocol

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Emily_F6](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emily_F6/gifts).

> This one has taken its inspiration from The Guardian by Emily_F6 (you can find it here https://archiveofourown.org/works/14428818/chapters/33325374#workskin, please go read it, it's amazing). In that fic (warning, spoilers ahead), Peter is in an accident and when his friends call Tony's office, Tony's secretary just hangs up on them. Tony then vows that someone needs to be fired and gives Ned his number. That got me thinking... What if Tony revises call protocols and makes FRIDAY monitor Peter-related calls just because of this incident. How would it feel like from a random employees' point of view?  
The whumptober prompt is only referenced briefly, but I couldn't resist writing this plot bunny out. Thank you, Emily_F6 for the inspiration!
> 
> Un-betaed

Dan had heard a shit ton of imaginative and unimaginative crap during his time as Stark Industries’ call center agent.

At first he had been on the tech department, answering questions of sale codes and reclamations and listening to unhappy customers (not that there were many) yell and rant and deferring personal callers to the PR department (there were quite an amount of those, ranging from parents complaining about Tony Stark’s latest stumble to teenagers trying to prank call Iron Man).

After some time, his manager had asked him to transfer to the PR department due to a shortage of staff. (Dan vaguely remembers hearing about a huge oversight and a resulting mass dismissal of personnel, made reportedly by Tony Stark himself.) He was promised better wage and he didn’t actually mind working in PR – even if there was the daunting possibility of getting onto Tony Stark’s blacklist, he liked to think he was good enough that it wouldn’t happen – so he went.

The work was mostly the same as before except he now had new representatives to which to direct the calls as well as new codes of behavior on how to receive calls. Basically, working at SI PR was the same as working in any high-profile company’s PR, except maybe a bit stricter. There were many, many codes; specific codewords that could be spoken by anyone and it would be fielded to a certain department, specific people whose calls would re-connect to a certain person or department upon voice-recognition.

Dan had a whole _manual_ of the words color-coded and divided by the importance to the company and the importance to Miss Potts or Mister Stark. The code list was ridiculously long and on top of it all there was also an all-powerful AI overseeing some of the gold (aka the most important) words and people. The importance of most of the words was easily deducible. All the names of the Avengers were there, along with known family and friends like Happy Hogan and Colonel Rhodes (who was also on the Avenger list). Upper-tier government personnel and other important public figures were a step below that, coded in red.

But there were some codewords that weren’t even on the list (or at least on the list that he had). Therefore, it was completely understandable when he almost disconnected from a very important call.

The call comes late at night, spoken by a clearly distraught young-sounding girl.

“Stark Industries.”

“He-hello, I need to get Tony Stark on the phone. It’s about Peter.”

He quickly types ‘Peter’ to cross-reference the manual, but comes up with nothing too important, so he switches onto ‘Potentially Bad’ protocol.

“Who did you say you were? And why would this ‘Peter’ be of interest to Mr. Stark?”

“I’m M-Michelle Jones. Peter is Stark’s intern and-and he’s just gotten into an accident.”

Dan is thrown for a second. Why would Stark care about a random intern getting into an accident?

“Sooo, you called to inform that he’s taking a leave of absence? Is that it?”

“NO!” The girl shouts in frustrated aggravation. “There-there was a truck a-and a kid and Peter just jumped in front of the kid and truck hit him and now he’s not responding and Stark promised — he promised—”

Uh oh. Dan ramps the call up to ‘Highly Bad’. The girl or this ‘Peter’ has evidently come into contact with Stark at some point. Maybe not a close friend since the name wasn’t flagged, but obviously a closer acquaintance since she had clearly assumed he would have known to connect her to Stark right from the start.

“Okay, okay! What’s his full name? I’ll patch you through to Stark’s personal secretary.”

Dan can hear the girl breathing deep, gathering herself before pronouncing in a clear, level voice, “Peter Parker.”

Before Dan can do anything, however, a new voice announces: “Codeword, ‘Peter Parker’. Connected.”

Now, Dan isn’t a stranger to FRIDAY. Working at SI, one overhears her occasionally hijacking phone calls with code gold words or voice prints. She’s even hijacked and redirected some of _his_ inbound calls.

The difference now was that he’s never read or even heard of this name being a codeword. As his screen flashes red and the call is redirected, he checks the manual for ‘Peter Parker’ and comes up with nothing again. There’s no ‘Peter Parker’ anywhere in the code manuals. Which begs the question, who the hell is this ‘Peter Parker’ and how on Earth does he have such a high clearance that he doesn’t even show on the code manual.

The mystery deepens as the day after, some of the lawyers from legal come down to make him sign a non-disclosure agreement about the call. The occurrence dwells in his mind for some time, but the only things he knows is that

  1. Peter Parker is somehow important enough for FRIDAY to be alarmed by the utterance of his whole name,
  2. he’s probably young if his friend’s voice was of any indication,
  3. he must be unbelievably brave or self-sacrificing to shield a kid from a speeding _truck_ of all things.

In the end, it doesn’t matter if this Peter is Stark’s relative or family friend or long-lost son. Dan just hopes he made it out okay. He scours the newspapers for any persons shielding kids from a truck during the next week, but nothing comes up and the call fades into a curiosity that resurfaces only once in a while.

Then, the Blip happens, and all curiosities are crushed under a universe of sorrow.

He personally loses his dear niece; someone he regards like his own daughter. Others lose more and some really, really rare lucky ones don’t lose anyone.

And then, after five years of mourning and coping, they’re back again and Mr. Stark’s gone, but Mrs. Stark is not and the PR department is swamped with condolences and donation calls, and it really is a tragedy, but Dan is just grateful to have little Mellie back. They go out on picnics every Saturday now, instead of just monthly like they did before the blip.

It’s on the return-trip of one of those picnics that Dan finally gets an answer.

On every big screen in Times Square, there plays a news flash.

_Oh, Spider-Man. Of course._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> If you liked this, please drop me a kudo and a comment and go check The Guardian!


End file.
